The Scornful Moon by Maurice Gee

The Scornful Moon

Maurice Gee

It feels rather more like Prohibition Chicago than Depression New Zealand. Good guy journalist, Sam, is at the centre of a story of power and corruption - of politics and family. If you relish the downfall of public figures, you will enjoy this scandal with a twist of murder.

Extract
I sat at my desk reading our chapters ... last, chapter eight, Owen Moody's.
It did not seem so very good now. Yet it stayed alive through the physical conviction driving it and the black counterflow of fear. I read it closely. I tried to lift stones. Who was this man with the scar that shone like a silver smile? Owen had met him in his dreams - and then drawn back from admitting more. But don't we all 'know' that our dreams reveal truths about ourselves that our daytime mind suppresses? Is that the latest word? Do I have it right? Well then, this scarred man with his unearthly beauty and the hatred that makes him kill, was he Owen's alter ego, the Mr Hyde to his cricket-playing Dr Jekyll? Had he emerged in Ollie Joll's office and forced poor Ollie to shoot?
Parallels
  • Vote to Kill by Douglas Hurd
  • The Welcoming Committee by Imogen de la Bere